Stahlia, Ten Years Old, Eleventh Month of 947
I was sitting in the middle of the valley of ice goblins. It might be a bit morbid, however, it was conveniently devoid of people other than Jacqueline and I, owing to the creepy factor. Thanks to my new title, I was unconcerned about remnant Goblins coming upon us while I was indisposed. I had slipped away from my tent in the dead of night, relying on my Stealth Talent and the boost from Shadow Blade Style to bypass the guards standing watch, as well as leave Giogi behind.
It was quite visibly cold out; we were in the middle of winter and the snow was piling up. The fact that we were surrounded by ice sculptures didn’t help raise the temperature much either. Still, Jacqueline didn’t comment as she helped me loosen my top and drop it off my shoulders. Just another side benefit of my blessing… It protects me from the cold while otherwise making me sick.
I took a deep breath and grit my teeth before engaging my remorse. Some minor things I had said or done flitted through my head, making me feel a bit sick, but I had grown used to these, and was able to quickly move past this part. Forgive myself, I wonder if it will really be that eas- I was torn from my thoughts as I was assaulted by a massive wave of nausea. Apparently, committing genocide on the goblin horde in the way I had done, was something I should have felt remorse over, and quite a bit of it as well, if this blowback was anything to go by.
Goblins are… targets for… extermination… why would this… be any different? I could feel bile rising in my throat. Surrendering to the urge, I stopped fighting and allowed myself to vomit. If I hadn’t acted, then it would have meant the end of the village! Everyone… would be dead by now!
I groaned as my stomach contorted, and a lance of pain stabbed through my head. My breath was coming out in ragged gasps. I’m sorry! Is that what I need to say!? Fuck! My chest was getting tight, and it was becoming hard to breath. I felt like I was being squeezed in a vice.
You know what! Fuck you! Fuck the gods and their shitty games! Someone had to send those goblins out of the mountains, and I bet it was you assholes! Are you happy tormenting me like this!? Do you get off on it? I grimaced as another bout of vomit spewed from my mouth. I had been stupid and eaten a somewhat large meal at dinner this evening, and was paying for it now.
Well you know what? I don’t care! My family was in that village, and if you’re going to… ugh… if you’re going to threaten them, I don’t care who you are! I don’t care what I have to do! I’ll protect my family! Surprisingly, as I made that declaration, the feelings of nausea abated somewhat, and the white-hot rod was seemingly pulled from my head. I spat out a mouth full of bile, and stated my resolve through clenched teeth.
“I’ll slaughter. them all if they. threaten my family. I don’t care. how many, or what happens. to me. I’ll protect. mine.” After another minute of roiling, I felt my stomach loosen. The tension left my shoulders and I sagged to my knees. I could feel tears beginning to fall; I had managed to overcome my regret from using such strong magic and killing the goblins in such a merciless fashion.
As I slumped forward, I became aware of a warm hand pressed onto my back; Jacqueline had apparently moved to comfort me, “What is…” another wave of nausea assailed me, as I once again beheld Asten’s face. In a hurry, I switched off my remorse. I would overcome that trauma another time; getting past the goblins had been ten times worse than Asten and Jacqueline’s arm had ever been.
I leaned back against Jacqueline’s arm, “Are you finished, Lady Stahlia…? I’m not sure doing magic experiments is such a good idea so soon after experiencing as much growth as you did in one sitting.
Ah, I did tell her that’s what I was doing, in order to protect the secret of [Cold Hearted] I nodded, “You’re right, I should probably have taken it easy…” I noticed that the moon had risen quite high in the sky, “…Jacqueline, how long was I out like that?”
Jacqueline grimaced, “A few hours. I tried calling out to you, but you did not respond.” A few hours…? It was that bad? How in the world did I manage to last that long…? The longest I could remember lasting with Asten and Jacqueline’s guilt was only a few tens of minutes. I knew the guilt from the goblins had been more extreme, at the very least I had been hit with more all at once.
The only thing I can think of is that my endurance has gone up a lot, so perhaps I’m able to handle the blowback for longer… but I don’t think I actually cleared the goblin guilt just from waiting it out… I managed o resolve myself, and in so doing, overcame the guilt. I’m sure I’ll still feel a bit bad about it when I turn remorse back on, but as long as I keep the mentality of doing what’s necessary, then the skill shouldn’t punish me.
That had to be the point of putting such a grueling punishment in place for the skill granted to the winter champion; to force them to face reality. Fucking. cunt ass. winter gods! What was especially irksome was how I had been more or less tricked into the position of Winter’s Champion by the goddess of lies. And she hasn’t said a word to me since then. It’s been nearly three years since that first dream. An apology for Mortis trying to get me killed would have been nice…
I indulged in my anger for a few more minutes; it felt good. After a little while, I calmed myself and stood up, “Jacqueline, help me get dressed, please. We need to get back soon and rest; the knights will be here either today or tomorrow.” Jacqueline nodded and came up to help me slip my top back into place.
We snuck back into the camp the same way we had left and retired to bed for the night. The next morning, I was awoken by Lindell rapping at my tent roughly, as well as his voice calling out to me, “Lady Stahlia, my apologies, but the knights have arrived, and their commander claims to know you.”
I sat up groggily. A knight who knows me? I can only think of the ones from Ang. So, they survived then. Not surprising considering the threat had left… I wonder what the official story about that is actually, considering I’ve been in Ris for the past months, I don’t exactly get news.
Jacqueline had roused herself, and quickly combed out my hair. I slipped into simple but modest clothing; my mother was far from pleased with this outfit, but I was living in a battlefield camp. I could hardly were fancy dresses day in and day out. I emerged from my tent and glanced around, I couldn’t see any knights that I recognized. Presumably, the one who knew me was in the command area with Lindell, who had also vanished after waking me.
I made my way to the command area, and before long I recognized Albert’s voice speaking with Lindell. So it is Knight Commander Albert then. Good, that should streamline me getting involved with the cleanup. Albert was, at the moment, asking Lindell about the field of goblin corpses. While they were still frozen in various places, they had started to thaw, so they no longer resembled ice sculptures.
“I am telling you to explain how twenty guards managed a slaughter like that. My men are telling me they were frozen.” Albert sounded tired, presumably, they had done a very hard march to reach Ris so quickly.
“And I’m telling you, with all due respect sir knight, that you should ask Lady Stahlia about that; it was her spell so she’s far more qualified to give you the report than I am.” Lindell sounded tired as well, though in his case the exhaustion seemed to be mental. Given the stress he had experienced over the past several days, and the fact that he was now being grilled by a knight, it was fairly understandable.
I let myself into the command tent and greeted Albert, “Commander Albert, it is a pleasure to meet you again. I only wish the circumstances would have been less dire.” I finished off my greeting with a full curtsy.
Albert nodded and bowed alongside his own greeting, “Lady Stahlia, as you say, it is indeed a pleasure to be working with you again. Since you are here, perhaps you can shed some light on this for me; this man is claiming you used Anti-Army magic to rout the goblins. Is that true?”
I pursed my lips; what I had done was technically illegal, highly so, “I did not exactly have many choices. The village would have been overrun if we had tried to hold off a horde of that size with twenty guards and a random collection of adventurers.”
Albert shook his head, “I understand that, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’ll have to answer to a member of the royal family. Which spell did you use?”
I shrugged, “Tell the Third Prince it was Frozen Garden, Niflheim. He will, in all likelihood, dismiss the case.” Getting around the legality of my actions would be a bit irritating, as it would depend on my connection to the third prince’s faction through the Francois family.
Albert nodded, “I’m sure he will. Putting that aside, your father told me to handle the situation through you rather than him. It is my impression that he deeply regrets putting you out here.”
I nodded, I was aware that he still felt bad about asking me to help while he couldn’t do anything himself. “Lindell, explain the situation with the surviving Goblins to Albert, then turn over command to him.”
Lindell nodded and quickly filled Albert in on the details surrounding the goblins retreating back into the foothills of the mountains, and how they were most likely gathering at their original camp a day’s march from here. After his explanation, Lindell turned over command of the village guard to Albert. My intention with that was for Albert to place a guard with each squad of knights as they moved about the foothills. This would help provide the knights with geographical knowledge as they hunted the stray goblins.
Thankfully, the knights would be helping round up the goblins that had survived; this was in order to prevent a new goblin from taking charge and reforming the horde. Though, in my opinion, the original leader most likely wasn’t actually dead. Lindell had told me that the exceptionally tall goblin that died right by the barrier had been a Goblin Lord.
Lindell and I both agreed that the horde was far too big for it to have been led by a single Lord, it was almost certainly led by a Goblin King. Albert, for what it was worth, took our assertions under advisement and agreed to keep the knight squads in groups of ten, plus one guard. It was a bit irksome that the kingdom had only sent three hundred knights, but I could understand their hesitation; I hadn’t been able to provide an accurate count of the horde, only a rough estimate.
Besides, one knight was easily worth thirty goblins and the knight’s armor would be more than capable of blunting all but the luckiest of attacks from a goblin. Hobgoblins would be a bit of an issue, but the knights should be fine as long as there were not too many of them. In short, the kingdom’s decision was pragmatic and logical.
Finished with my musings, I spoke up, “Albert, I wish to join one of the groups.”
Albert gave me an appraising look, “Your father wouldn’t like that; now that we are here, he would want you to return home.”
I nodded; I knew he would want me to go home, but I had sworn to do whatever I had to do in order to protect my family. I would be breaking that vow if I went home now without finishing what I started.
“That may be so, but I want to finish things… I’ll go alone if you don’t let me join a squad.”
Albert grimaced, “Fine, I’ll put you with a squad, but if your father says anything, I’ll be telling him you pulled rank on me.”
Right, I do technically outrank Albert in this instance, as the daughter and appointed representative of the local lord.
★★★★★★
I found myself deep in the foothills along Lindell and Albert. I had something I wanted to say about putting the three ranking members of the suppression force in the same unit, but as I had entrusted the organization to Albert, I held my tongue. I was also aware that he was probably doing this to somewhat blunt my father’s ire when we returned; by this point it should have been extremely obvious that I was not planning on returning home.
Stil was still at the house with Felicity and Rosin; I had not gone to retrieve him, for fear of being forbidden to return. With my new stats, I should be able to get away from my parents easily, but that wasn’t something I wanted to do; it would set a bad precedent for me. Jacqueline had also remained behind in the camp. Given her lack of an arm, there was no way Albert would have allowed her to accompany us. Frankly, it was a minor miracle that nobody had said anything about how she had gone with me when I went after Sitri. I still wasn’t sure why that was.
Giogi had come with us, for what that was worth. It would probably do him some good to work with a team of fully-fledged knights. At the moment, we were moving along towards the goblin’s original encampment. We were supposed to rendezvous with the other squads there at four pm. Along the way, we were to engage any goblin stragglers we came across. I had set my title to “none” for the time being, as causing the goblins to flee at the sight of me would be counterproductive to exterminating them.
Unfortunately, we did not run into any groups of stray goblins and made good time to the horde’s camp’s location. This was our predicted worst-case scenario, given that it had been a few days since my spell, the goblins would have had more than enough time to regroup. At this point, none of us questioned the idea of goblins regrouping, we just sort of accepted that it was something that had happened.
Looking down into the camp, we could see a few hundred of the green vermin, including another one that looked like it was probably a Goblin Lord. But there was no sign of a Goblin King. I enhanced my eyes and surveyed the area intently, looking for any signs of the real leader. After not spotting anything, I activated my divine eyes. The goblins barely glowed at all, with the most light coming from their chest; likely where their magic stone was.
The few Hobgoblins were a fair bit brighter than the goblins, roughly the same as the average human really. The Goblin Lord was about as bright as one of the knights, giving a fair indicator of his strength. I should be able to handle him myself, hell the knights probably could; I doubt he’s as well trained as one of them. But ideally, we should try and take him alive. He might be able to tell us where the king is. There was a slim chance that the Goblin Lord would know enough common language for us to interrogate him.
Albert was waving at me, making a gesture as if he was tying something up and pointing at the Goblin Lord. Glad to see we are on the same page, I won’t have to argue my stance that way. We had a few minutes before the other knights were supposed to be in position, so we fell back a short distance to where we could hold a whispered conversation.
Albert opened, “We have no way of communicating our intention to capture the Goblin Lord… so that means we have to get to it first, before any of the other units.” He glanced over his men, Lindell, and myself.
“Lady Stahlia, I hate to say it, but you are the only mage, do you have a method of incapacitating the goblin lord?” I thought for a moment. Spells that induced paralysis or sleep type debuffs fell under the banner of Black Magic, which I had not studied yet, and unlike how I had learned a few White Magic spells, I had not done so with Black Magic.
That being said, I could still use my abilities to capture the goblin lord, most likely it would be incredibly easy. But I didn’t want to show off with the knights watching; at the end of the day, they might turn into my enemies. I shook my head, regretting that I couldn’t test my new stats and skills, “No, I don’t know any Black Magic. I can boost you and your men with Wind Magic though, and erect a wall with Ice Magic to cut the lord off from the other groups.”
Albert looked grateful, “That will be good enough. What do you need from us?”
I cracked my neck in what I hoped would be a reassuring manner, “Thirty seconds to chant the buff spell. I’ll chant-hold the wall and deploy it as you start running.” Lindell looked a bit lost, but Albert and the knights were all nodding; they had done drills with mages.
With level five Ice magic, I could actually talent cast Ice Wall now, but I would rather keep the talent a secret if at all possible, hence the chant holding.
I quickly recited the chant for [Ice Wall], it was only a few verses and engaged the process of chant-holding. We made our way back up to the spot where we could overlook the goblins, to our luck, the Goblin Lord had actually moved closer to where our group was hiding. I kept an eye on it while surveying the surrounding areas. One by one I caught the brief flash of the knights signaling they were in position. It appears we didn’t lose anyone.
I tensed up, ready to spring out, and took a deep breath. Albert glanced at his timepiece then signaled me to cast the wind spell. I took a deep breath and began chanting the spell [Fleet Foot].
“Oh Wind, Wrap the #### of my allies in your gentle ########. Carry them to ####### with the haste of a #####. May you blow across the #### with the vigor of a #####. [Fleet Foot]”
[Fleet Foot] was a targeted buff version of [Wind Step], whereas [Wind Step] buffed the caster, [Fleet Foot] buffed the caster’s allies. As for what defined an ally, I wasn’t completely sure, but it seemed to be tied into who you were desiring to buff, indicating that some aspect of the way chants worked involved reading the caster’s thoughts and intentions to fill in the gaps; I had made extensive use of this in my original Anti-Army chant.
As soon as I finished the chant, a gentle breeze blew out from my location and wrapped itself around my allies feet. It should increase their running speed by about one and a half times; more than enough for them to reach the Goblin Lord before the other groups, especially as it had moved closer to us. Albert stood, and bellowing a war cry to draw the monster’s attention, he charged towards it.
I followed, surreptitiously using some light enhancements on myself to keep up. If asked later, I was planning to say I had talent cast [Wind Step] on myself. Surprisingly, despite using extremely weak blood magic, I actually almost outpaced Albert and had to force myself to slow down. Is this how fast I’ve gotten now? I’m not using my Kinetic Perception’s reflex boost at all, just normal blood magic.
It would seem that I was now as fast as magically boosted knights in heavy metal armor. Of course, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, they aren’t anywhere close to the speed Sitri reached. I was close enough now to activate Ice Wall. The Wall spells were great for area denial, however, they had a distinct lack of deployment range. What’s more, when augment chanting in a method to increase the range, Wall spells had some of the lowest performance of any spells, costing exponentially more mana for just a few extra feet of distance.
As the words “[Ice Wall]!” left my lips, a wall made of Ice sprung up between the Goblin Lord and the other groups of knights. I then turned aside and drew the short sword I was using in place of my dagger; a weapon with such narrow reach would hardly be effective on a large battlefield such as this.
I left the Goblin Lord to Albert and his men and began hunting Hobgoblins. My class experience wasn’t increasing, however, I could still earn Sword Fighting talent experience, and leveling up talents was one of the ways I could earn a few Life Points, in fact, getting Ice Magic to level five straight away had likely given me a large amount of the twelve hundred life points I had after my extermination spell.
As I ran, I switched my equipped fighting style from Shadow Blade to Drakan; the latter would be much more useful in the current situation. I ran towards a group of three knights that had become separated from the rest of their squad. They were engaging with five hobgoblins and a handful of goblins; while not life-threatening for them, it would be time-consuming.
Running up behind, I passed a large amount of mana around my sword’s blade. Now that I had so much more, I was interested to know what the limits of my enhancement were. I stopped when the sword started to vibrate in my hand; the last thing I needed was for it to explode. Swinging wide, I passed the blade through the hobgoblin. More than a hot knife through butter, it felt like I was cutting through the air, my blade hardly registered the flesh of the monster at all.
Of course, this led to me overswinging, and I had to hurriedly pull back the sword. This abrupt action caused me to stumble, and one of the hobgoblins just recovering from the surprise of his friend being cut in half, moved to capitalize on my poor stance. I wasn’t able to recover in time to defend myself, and the knights were being assaulted by dozens of goblins; hardly in a position where I could count on their help.
Despite my predicament, I wasn’t afraid. I opened my menu, and switched my title from “none” to “Goblin Calamity”. Suddenly, the hobgoblin that was bearing down on me froze. The snarl of rage fell off of its face and was replaced by a look of sheer terror. The hobgoblin spun about and began running for the edge of the battlefield. I recovered my stance and pointed a finger at the back of my fleeing opponent.
“[Icicle Bolt]”, at my command, a small icicle of magic ice formed in front of my finger before launching itself at speed and skewering the hobgoblin in the back of the head. More and more of the goblins and hobgoblins were noticing me. It was like a wave as they would turn and begin to run, this causing their nearby allies to look around to see why their buddy was running, only to see me and be inflicted with terror.
A not insignificant number of them also simply died on the spot. This… this title is something else. It beats dying, but I probably shouldn’t have used it… I chided myself for using the title, instead of just firing off a quick talent cast to buy myself time to recover. I’ll just switch that back to “none” before they’re all fleeing. Unfortunately, it seemed that even with me no longer radiating an aura of fear, the rout had already begun. Even those that hadn’t beheld my terrifying visage were fleeing the battlefield.
Fortunately, a large number of the knights had not pushed in too far yet, and a perimeter was quickly established. There were a few gaps, and we couldn’t catch all of the goblins, but most of them would be cut down. We did what we had to. If we didn’t wipe them out, the horde would have reformed in time and started the threat all over again. I reassured myself that I had nothing to regret, already not looking forward to tonight. Especially regarding the goblins that had simply seen me and dropped dead. Even with my remorse currently turned off, I felt a bit bad about that. Terror is scary… I’ll limit myself to just “Goblin Slayer” unless I’m facing another horde.
A quick glance back in the direction I had come, revealed that the knights with Albert had surrounded the Goblin Lord with my ice wall on one side, and were working to disarm it. I turned back around to face the fleeing goblins, hefted my sword, took a deep breath, and charged into the fray. It was more or less a massacre. The large majority of the Goblins were still in a state of terror towards me, so they did not offer any resistance and merely tried to get away as I cut them down.
Thankfully, I was able to do it, though I felt unsettled over how easy it was, likely my empathy. I considered disabling it, but shook off those thoughts; If I continued to run and hide from myself, I would simply wind up with another Asten and Jaqueline’s arm moment haunting me. I grit my teeth and continued to swing my sword arm, running through the basic forms of Drakan Style.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
The mechanical nature of the fight helped me put behind the actions of what I was doing. Due to the enhancements I had applied to my blade, every swing marked the end of another life.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
I continued to push forward, leaving a trail of bodies behind me. Thanks to my newly raised Endurance, I wasn’t getting tired from the exertion of swinging my sword, though I had to wonder what my limit was now. I’ll have to test that, it wouldn’t be good to suddenly hit my limit in a fight against an opponent that actually poses a threat.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
I lopped the head off a particularly large hobgoblin, probably an officer of some kind. I stepped over its body as it fell, and was bathed in the green ichor that spewed from the stump neck. It stank, and I did my best to tune it out; continuing my advance as I tightened my grip on my now slick sword hilt lest it slip from my grasp
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Sla-
“Stop, Stahlia.” My sword arm fell limp, and the point of my sword dug into the dirt.
“What…” Turning my head, I saw Albert, the knight commander. He had ducked inside of my reach and caught my arms, halting my movement. Looking around, I saw several of the knights were looking away awkwardly. I was at the perimeter of the goblin’s camp. Looking behind me, I saw a line cut straight through the middle of it. Whereas the left and right of that space had a number of corpses, all of those had multiple wounds. Within the line, every corpse had a single wound, all in a vital spot. Some had been decapitated, others had been stabbed through the heart. Still, others had been bisected, and others had a slashed throat.
I did that? I tried to release my sword but found that my hand refused to unclench. Taking my other hand, I pried my fingers loose. The sword, now un-grasped, fell from my grip and into the dirt. Looking at my arms, I found that I had turned green, covered in fresh goblin blood. If I turned my remorse on now… I imagine I would pass out. Killing ten thousand goblins with a spell, while brutal, had had some distance to it. Killing several hundred by hand, while they were terrified and running away from me… I shivered in spite of myself.
What’s that quote? “Kill a dozen people and you’re a murderer, kill a million and it’s a statistic”? “…Albert, let’s go back to the camp. I… I need to get cleaned up.”
Albert hesitated a moment, then agreed, “Aye, We should do that.”
Stahlia, Ten Years Old, Eleventh Month of 947
I was sitting in the middle of the valley of ice goblins. It might be a bit morbid, however, it was conveniently devoid of people other than Jacqueline and I, owing to the creepy factor. Thanks to my new title, I was unconcerned about remnant Goblins coming upon us while I was indisposed. I had slipped away from my tent in the dead of night, relying on my Stealth Talent and the boost from Shadow Blade Style to bypass the guards standing watch, as well as leave Giogi behind.
It was quite visibly cold out; we were in the middle of winter and the snow was piling up. The fact that we were surrounded by ice sculptures didn’t help raise the temperature much either. Still, Jacqueline didn’t comment as she helped me loosen my top and drop it off my shoulders. Just another side benefit of my blessing… It protects me from the cold while otherwise making me sick.
I took a deep breath and grit my teeth before engaging my remorse. Some minor things I had said or done flitted through my head, making me feel a bit sick, but I had grown used to these, and was able to quickly move past this part. Forgive myself, I wonder if it will really be that eas- I was torn from my thoughts as I was assaulted by a massive wave of nausea. Apparently, committing genocide on the goblin horde in the way I had done, was something I should have felt remorse over, and quite a bit of it as well, if this blowback was anything to go by.
Goblins are… targets for… extermination… why would this… be any different? I could feel bile rising in my throat. Surrendering to the urge, I stopped fighting and allowed myself to vomit. If I hadn’t acted, then it would have meant the end of the village! Everyone… would be dead by now!
I groaned as my stomach contorted, and a lance of pain stabbed through my head. My breath was coming out in ragged gasps. I’m sorry! Is that what I need to say!? Fuck! My chest was getting tight, and it was becoming hard to breath. I felt like I was being squeezed in a vice.
You know what! Fuck you! Fuck the gods and their shitty games! Someone had to send those goblins out of the mountains, and I bet it was you assholes! Are you happy tormenting me like this!? Do you get off on it? I grimaced as another bout of vomit spewed from my mouth. I had been stupid and eaten a somewhat large meal at dinner this evening, and was paying for it now.
Well you know what? I don’t care! My family was in that village, and if you’re going to… ugh… if you’re going to threaten them, I don’t care who you are! I don’t care what I have to do! I’ll protect my family! Surprisingly, as I made that declaration, the feelings of nausea abated somewhat, and the white-hot rod was seemingly pulled from my head. I spat out a mouth full of bile, and stated my resolve through clenched teeth.
“I’ll slaughter. them all if they. threaten my family. I don’t care. how many, or what happens. to me. I’ll protect. mine.” After another minute of roiling, I felt my stomach loosen. The tension left my shoulders and I sagged to my knees. I could feel tears beginning to fall; I had managed to overcome my regret from using such strong magic and killing the goblins in such a merciless fashion.
As I slumped forward, I became aware of a warm hand pressed onto my back; Jacqueline had apparently moved to comfort me, “What is…” another wave of nausea assailed me, as I once again beheld Asten’s face. In a hurry, I switched off my remorse. I would overcome that trauma another time; getting past the goblins had been ten times worse than Asten and Jacqueline’s arm had ever been.
I leaned back against Jacqueline’s arm, “Are you finished, Lady Stahlia…? I’m not sure doing magic experiments is such a good idea so soon after experiencing as much growth as you did in one sitting.
Ah, I did tell her that’s what I was doing, in order to protect the secret of [Cold Hearted] I nodded, “You’re right, I should probably have taken it easy…” I noticed that the moon had risen quite high in the sky, “…Jacqueline, how long was I out like that?”
Jacqueline grimaced, “A few hours. I tried calling out to you, but you did not respond.” A few hours…? It was that bad? How in the world did I manage to last that long…? The longest I could remember lasting with Asten and Jacqueline’s guilt was only a few tens of minutes. I knew the guilt from the goblins had been more extreme, at the very least I had been hit with more all at once.
The only thing I can think of is that my endurance has gone up a lot, so perhaps I’m able to handle the blowback for longer… but I don’t think I actually cleared the goblin guilt just from waiting it out… I managed o resolve myself, and in so doing, overcame the guilt. I’m sure I’ll still feel a bit bad about it when I turn remorse back on, but as long as I keep the mentality of doing what’s necessary, then the skill shouldn’t punish me.
That had to be the point of putting such a grueling punishment in place for the skill granted to the winter champion; to force them to face reality. Fucking. cunt ass. winter gods! What was especially irksome was how I had been more or less tricked into the position of Winter’s Champion by the goddess of lies. And she hasn’t said a word to me since then. It’s been nearly three years since that first dream. An apology for Mortis trying to get me killed would have been nice…
I indulged in my anger for a few more minutes; it felt good. After a little while, I calmed myself and stood up, “Jacqueline, help me get dressed, please. We need to get back soon and rest; the knights will be here either today or tomorrow.” Jacqueline nodded and came up to help me slip my top back into place.
We snuck back into the camp the same way we had left and retired to bed for the night. The next morning, I was awoken by Lindell rapping at my tent roughly, as well as his voice calling out to me, “Lady Stahlia, my apologies, but the knights have arrived, and their commander claims to know you.”
I sat up groggily. A knight who knows me? I can only think of the ones from Ang. So, they survived then. Not surprising considering the threat had left… I wonder what the official story about that is actually, considering I’ve been in Ris for the past months, I don’t exactly get news.
Jacqueline had roused herself, and quickly combed out my hair. I slipped into simple but modest clothing; my mother was far from pleased with this outfit, but I was living in a battlefield camp. I could hardly were fancy dresses day in and day out. I emerged from my tent and glanced around, I couldn’t see any knights that I recognized. Presumably, the one who knew me was in the command area with Lindell, who had also vanished after waking me.
I made my way to the command area, and before long I recognized Albert’s voice speaking with Lindell. So it is Knight Commander Albert then. Good, that should streamline me getting involved with the cleanup. Albert was, at the moment, asking Lindell about the field of goblin corpses. While they were still frozen in various places, they had started to thaw, so they no longer resembled ice sculptures.
“I am telling you to explain how twenty guards managed a slaughter like that. My men are telling me they were frozen.” Albert sounded tired, presumably, they had done a very hard march to reach Ris so quickly.
“And I’m telling you, with all due respect sir knight, that you should ask Lady Stahlia about that; it was her spell so she’s far more qualified to give you the report than I am.” Lindell sounded tired as well, though in his case the exhaustion seemed to be mental. Given the stress he had experienced over the past several days, and the fact that he was now being grilled by a knight, it was fairly understandable.
I let myself into the command tent and greeted Albert, “Commander Albert, it is a pleasure to meet you again. I only wish the circumstances would have been less dire.” I finished off my greeting with a full curtsy.
Albert nodded and bowed alongside his own greeting, “Lady Stahlia, as you say, it is indeed a pleasure to be working with you again. Since you are here, perhaps you can shed some light on this for me; this man is claiming you used Anti-Army magic to rout the goblins. Is that true?”
I pursed my lips; what I had done was technically illegal, highly so, “I did not exactly have many choices. The village would have been overrun if we had tried to hold off a horde of that size with twenty guards and a random collection of adventurers.”
Albert shook his head, “I understand that, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’ll have to answer to a member of the royal family. Which spell did you use?”
I shrugged, “Tell the Third Prince it was Frozen Garden, Niflheim. He will, in all likelihood, dismiss the case.” Getting around the legality of my actions would be a bit irritating, as it would depend on my connection to the third prince’s faction through the Francois family.
Albert nodded, “I’m sure he will. Putting that aside, your father told me to handle the situation through you rather than him. It is my impression that he deeply regrets putting you out here.”
I nodded, I was aware that he still felt bad about asking me to help while he couldn’t do anything himself. “Lindell, explain the situation with the surviving Goblins to Albert, then turn over command to him.”
Lindell nodded and quickly filled Albert in on the details surrounding the goblins retreating back into the foothills of the mountains, and how they were most likely gathering at their original camp a day’s march from here. After his explanation, Lindell turned over command of the village guard to Albert. My intention with that was for Albert to place a guard with each squad of knights as they moved about the foothills. This would help provide the knights with geographical knowledge as they hunted the stray goblins.
Thankfully, the knights would be helping round up the goblins that had survived; this was in order to prevent a new goblin from taking charge and reforming the horde. Though, in my opinion, the original leader most likely wasn’t actually dead. Lindell had told me that the exceptionally tall goblin that died right by the barrier had been a Goblin Lord.
Lindell and I both agreed that the horde was far too big for it to have been led by a single Lord, it was almost certainly led by a Goblin King. Albert, for what it was worth, took our assertions under advisement and agreed to keep the knight squads in groups of ten, plus one guard. It was a bit irksome that the kingdom had only sent three hundred knights, but I could understand their hesitation; I hadn’t been able to provide an accurate count of the horde, only a rough estimate.
Besides, one knight was easily worth thirty goblins and the knight’s armor would be more than capable of blunting all but the luckiest of attacks from a goblin. Hobgoblins would be a bit of an issue, but the knights should be fine as long as there were not too many of them. In short, the kingdom’s decision was pragmatic and logical.
Finished with my musings, I spoke up, “Albert, I wish to join one of the groups.”
Albert gave me an appraising look, “Your father wouldn’t like that; now that we are here, he would want you to return home.”
I nodded; I knew he would want me to go home, but I had sworn to do whatever I had to do in order to protect my family. I would be breaking that vow if I went home now without finishing what I started.
“That may be so, but I want to finish things… I’ll go alone if you don’t let me join a squad.”
Albert grimaced, “Fine, I’ll put you with a squad, but if your father says anything, I’ll be telling him you pulled rank on me.”
Right, I do technically outrank Albert in this instance, as the daughter and appointed representative of the local lord.
★★★★★★
I found myself deep in the foothills along Lindell and Albert. I had something I wanted to say about putting the three ranking members of the suppression force in the same unit, but as I had entrusted the organization to Albert, I held my tongue. I was also aware that he was probably doing this to somewhat blunt my father’s ire when we returned; by this point it should have been extremely obvious that I was not planning on returning home.
Stil was still at the house with Felicity and Rosin; I had not gone to retrieve him, for fear of being forbidden to return. With my new stats, I should be able to get away from my parents easily, but that wasn’t something I wanted to do; it would set a bad precedent for me. Jacqueline had also remained behind in the camp. Given her lack of an arm, there was no way Albert would have allowed her to accompany us. Frankly, it was a minor miracle that nobody had said anything about how she had gone with me when I went after Sitri. I still wasn’t sure why that was.
Giogi had come with us, for what that was worth. It would probably do him some good to work with a team of fully-fledged knights. At the moment, we were moving along towards the goblin’s original encampment. We were supposed to rendezvous with the other squads there at four pm. Along the way, we were to engage any goblin stragglers we came across. I had set my title to “none” for the time being, as causing the goblins to flee at the sight of me would be counterproductive to exterminating them.
Unfortunately, we did not run into any groups of stray goblins and made good time to the horde’s camp’s location. This was our predicted worst-case scenario, given that it had been a few days since my spell, the goblins would have had more than enough time to regroup. At this point, none of us questioned the idea of goblins regrouping, we just sort of accepted that it was something that had happened.
Looking down into the camp, we could see a few hundred of the green vermin, including another one that looked like it was probably a Goblin Lord. But there was no sign of a Goblin King. I enhanced my eyes and surveyed the area intently, looking for any signs of the real leader. After not spotting anything, I activated my divine eyes. The goblins barely glowed at all, with the most light coming from their chest; likely where their magic stone was.
The few Hobgoblins were a fair bit brighter than the goblins, roughly the same as the average human really. The Goblin Lord was about as bright as one of the knights, giving a fair indicator of his strength. I should be able to handle him myself, hell the knights probably could; I doubt he’s as well trained as one of them. But ideally, we should try and take him alive. He might be able to tell us where the king is. There was a slim chance that the Goblin Lord would know enough common language for us to interrogate him.
Albert was waving at me, making a gesture as if he was tying something up and pointing at the Goblin Lord. Glad to see we are on the same page, I won’t have to argue my stance that way. We had a few minutes before the other knights were supposed to be in position, so we fell back a short distance to where we could hold a whispered conversation.
Albert opened, “We have no way of communicating our intention to capture the Goblin Lord… so that means we have to get to it first, before any of the other units.” He glanced over his men, Lindell, and myself.
“Lady Stahlia, I hate to say it, but you are the only mage, do you have a method of incapacitating the goblin lord?” I thought for a moment. Spells that induced paralysis or sleep type debuffs fell under the banner of Black Magic, which I had not studied yet, and unlike how I had learned a few White Magic spells, I had not done so with Black Magic.
That being said, I could still use my abilities to capture the goblin lord, most likely it would be incredibly easy. But I didn’t want to show off with the knights watching; at the end of the day, they might turn into my enemies. I shook my head, regretting that I couldn’t test my new stats and skills, “No, I don’t know any Black Magic. I can boost you and your men with Wind Magic though, and erect a wall with Ice Magic to cut the lord off from the other groups.”
Albert looked grateful, “That will be good enough. What do you need from us?”
I cracked my neck in what I hoped would be a reassuring manner, “Thirty seconds to chant the buff spell. I’ll chant-hold the wall and deploy it as you start running.” Lindell looked a bit lost, but Albert and the knights were all nodding; they had done drills with mages.
With level five Ice magic, I could actually talent cast Ice Wall now, but I would rather keep the talent a secret if at all possible, hence the chant holding.
I quickly recited the chant for [Ice Wall], it was only a few verses and engaged the process of chant-holding. We made our way back up to the spot where we could overlook the goblins, to our luck, the Goblin Lord had actually moved closer to where our group was hiding. I kept an eye on it while surveying the surrounding areas. One by one I caught the brief flash of the knights signaling they were in position. It appears we didn’t lose anyone.
I tensed up, ready to spring out, and took a deep breath. Albert glanced at his timepiece then signaled me to cast the wind spell. I took a deep breath and began chanting the spell [Fleet Foot].
“Oh Wind, Wrap the #### of my allies in your gentle ########. Carry them to ####### with the haste of a #####. May you blow across the #### with the vigor of a #####. [Fleet Foot]”
[Fleet Foot] was a targeted buff version of [Wind Step], whereas [Wind Step] buffed the caster, [Fleet Foot] buffed the caster’s allies. As for what defined an ally, I wasn’t completely sure, but it seemed to be tied into who you were desiring to buff, indicating that some aspect of the way chants worked involved reading the caster’s thoughts and intentions to fill in the gaps; I had made extensive use of this in my original Anti-Army chant.
As soon as I finished the chant, a gentle breeze blew out from my location and wrapped itself around my allies feet. It should increase their running speed by about one and a half times; more than enough for them to reach the Goblin Lord before the other groups, especially as it had moved closer to us. Albert stood, and bellowing a war cry to draw the monster’s attention, he charged towards it.
I followed, surreptitiously using some light enhancements on myself to keep up. If asked later, I was planning to say I had talent cast [Wind Step] on myself. Surprisingly, despite using extremely weak blood magic, I actually almost outpaced Albert and had to force myself to slow down. Is this how fast I’ve gotten now? I’m not using my Kinetic Perception’s reflex boost at all, just normal blood magic.
It would seem that I was now as fast as magically boosted knights in heavy metal armor. Of course, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, they aren’t anywhere close to the speed Sitri reached. I was close enough now to activate Ice Wall. The Wall spells were great for area denial, however, they had a distinct lack of deployment range. What’s more, when augment chanting in a method to increase the range, Wall spells had some of the lowest performance of any spells, costing exponentially more mana for just a few extra feet of distance.
As the words “[Ice Wall]!” left my lips, a wall made of Ice sprung up between the Goblin Lord and the other groups of knights. I then turned aside and drew the short sword I was using in place of my dagger; a weapon with such narrow reach would hardly be effective on a large battlefield such as this.
I left the Goblin Lord to Albert and his men and began hunting Hobgoblins. My class experience wasn’t increasing, however, I could still earn Sword Fighting talent experience, and leveling up talents was one of the ways I could earn a few Life Points, in fact, getting Ice Magic to level five straight away had likely given me a large amount of the twelve hundred life points I had after my extermination spell.
As I ran, I switched my equipped fighting style from Shadow Blade to Drakan; the latter would be much more useful in the current situation. I ran towards a group of three knights that had become separated from the rest of their squad. They were engaging with five hobgoblins and a handful of goblins; while not life-threatening for them, it would be time-consuming.
Running up behind, I passed a large amount of mana around my sword’s blade. Now that I had so much more, I was interested to know what the limits of my enhancement were. I stopped when the sword started to vibrate in my hand; the last thing I needed was for it to explode. Swinging wide, I passed the blade through the hobgoblin. More than a hot knife through butter, it felt like I was cutting through the air, my blade hardly registered the flesh of the monster at all.
Of course, this led to me overswinging, and I had to hurriedly pull back the sword. This abrupt action caused me to stumble, and one of the hobgoblins just recovering from the surprise of his friend being cut in half, moved to capitalize on my poor stance. I wasn’t able to recover in time to defend myself, and the knights were being assaulted by dozens of goblins; hardly in a position where I could count on their help.
Despite my predicament, I wasn’t afraid. I opened my menu, and switched my title from “none” to “Goblin Calamity”. Suddenly, the hobgoblin that was bearing down on me froze. The snarl of rage fell off of its face and was replaced by a look of sheer terror. The hobgoblin spun about and began running for the edge of the battlefield. I recovered my stance and pointed a finger at the back of my fleeing opponent.
“[Icicle Bolt]”, at my command, a small icicle of magic ice formed in front of my finger before launching itself at speed and skewering the hobgoblin in the back of the head. More and more of the goblins and hobgoblins were noticing me. It was like a wave as they would turn and begin to run, this causing their nearby allies to look around to see why their buddy was running, only to see me and be inflicted with terror.
A not insignificant number of them also simply died on the spot. This… this title is something else. It beats dying, but I probably shouldn’t have used it… I chided myself for using the title, instead of just firing off a quick talent cast to buy myself time to recover. I’ll just switch that back to “none” before they’re all fleeing. Unfortunately, it seemed that even with me no longer radiating an aura of fear, the rout had already begun. Even those that hadn’t beheld my terrifying visage were fleeing the battlefield.
Fortunately, a large number of the knights had not pushed in too far yet, and a perimeter was quickly established. There were a few gaps, and we couldn’t catch all of the goblins, but most of them would be cut down. We did what we had to. If we didn’t wipe them out, the horde would have reformed in time and started the threat all over again. I reassured myself that I had nothing to regret, already not looking forward to tonight. Especially regarding the goblins that had simply seen me and dropped dead. Even with my remorse currently turned off, I felt a bit bad about that. Terror is scary… I’ll limit myself to just “Goblin Slayer” unless I’m facing another horde.
A quick glance back in the direction I had come, revealed that the knights with Albert had surrounded the Goblin Lord with my ice wall on one side, and were working to disarm it. I turned back around to face the fleeing goblins, hefted my sword, took a deep breath, and charged into the fray. It was more or less a massacre. The large majority of the Goblins were still in a state of terror towards me, so they did not offer any resistance and merely tried to get away as I cut them down.
Thankfully, I was able to do it, though I felt unsettled over how easy it was, likely my empathy. I considered disabling it, but shook off those thoughts; If I continued to run and hide from myself, I would simply wind up with another Asten and Jaqueline’s arm moment haunting me. I grit my teeth and continued to swing my sword arm, running through the basic forms of Drakan Style.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
The mechanical nature of the fight helped me put behind the actions of what I was doing. Due to the enhancements I had applied to my blade, every swing marked the end of another life.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
I continued to push forward, leaving a trail of bodies behind me. Thanks to my newly raised Endurance, I wasn’t getting tired from the exertion of swinging my sword, though I had to wonder what my limit was now. I’ll have to test that, it wouldn’t be good to suddenly hit my limit in a fight against an opponent that actually poses a threat.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
I lopped the head off a particularly large hobgoblin, probably an officer of some kind. I stepped over its body as it fell, and was bathed in the green ichor that spewed from the stump neck. It stank, and I did my best to tune it out; continuing my advance as I tightened my grip on my now slick sword hilt lest it slip from my grasp
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Slash, Advance.
Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Stab, Thrust, Slash, Advance. Step-back and thrust. Sla-
“Stop, Stahlia.” My sword arm fell limp, and the point of my sword dug into the dirt.
“What…” Turning my head, I saw Albert, the knight commander. He had ducked inside of my reach and caught my arms, halting my movement. Looking around, I saw several of the knights were looking away awkwardly. I was at the perimeter of the goblin’s camp. Looking behind me, I saw a line cut straight through the middle of it. Whereas the left and right of that space had a number of corpses, all of those had multiple wounds. Within the line, every corpse had a single wound, all in a vital spot. Some had been decapitated, others had been stabbed through the heart. Still, others had been bisected, and others had a slashed throat.
I did that? I tried to release my sword but found that my hand refused to unclench. Taking my other hand, I pried my fingers loose. The sword, now un-grasped, fell from my grip and into the dirt. Looking at my arms, I found that I had turned green, covered in fresh goblin blood. If I turned my remorse on now… I imagine I would pass out. Killing ten thousand goblins with a spell, while brutal, had had some distance to it. Killing several hundred by hand, while they were terrified and running away from me… I shivered in spite of myself.
What’s that quote? “Kill a dozen people and you’re a murderer, kill a million and it’s a statistic”? “…Albert, let’s go back to the camp. I… I need to get cleaned up.”
Albert hesitated a moment, then agreed, “Aye, We should do that.”
